Boris Titov, the leader of Russia’s Party of Growth, called for the country to legalize cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and become a leader in blockchain development, according to Tass, a Russian news agency. Speaking at a press conference, Titov also said Russia can take advantage of its difficult economic situation to embrace blockchain technology as a […]

A hacker group that calls itself “Pravvy Sector” is trying to extort the government of Poland for $50,000 in traditional money or bitcoin, with the threat of releasing stolen data from the country’s Defense Ministry.

Exchanges, miners, developers, users and ethereum’s entire ecosystem is getting ready for a historical and defining hardfork. Kraken, eth’s biggest exchange after Polonix, announced traders will be offered only one option, eth on the longest chain. If other exchanges follow Kraken’s example, which is likely, a chain split is practically impossible save for, at worst, […]

A bank's core system is the back-end technology that enables it to process transactions as well as manage accounts and coordinate interactions between those accounts.

Thought Machine, a UK startup founded by ex-Google engineers, has developed a new core banking system called Vault OS that leverages blockchain and cloud technology to carry out these functions. It is being tested by a high street lender and a private bank in the UK.

Here's where Vault OS plans to help banks:

Unreliable core systems. Many high street banks rely on core banking systems that were created by patching together many generations of software — some of which date back to the 1970s. In the UK, these systems recently suffered a number of significant outages — in 2014, RBS had an outage that lasted four weeks and resulted in a £56 million fine from regulators, for example. Vault OS is designed to replace existing solutions made up of multiple systems with one streamlined system.

Core systems can't keep up with new regulatory requirements. The number of regulatory publications, changes, and announcements that financial firms have to act onincreased around 500% between 2008 and 2015. But legacy core systems weren't built to handle this volume of requirements and struggle to keep up. Vault OS has built-in risk and compliance systems that are automatically updated with new requirements. It can also automate regulatory reporting.

Core systems are expensive to build and maintain. Over 70% of banks' IT spend goes toward maintaining legacy systems, according to Citi. These systems also require extensive in-house infrastructure, which is a particular problem for challenger banks that don't have the resources that legacy institutions do. Vault OS leverages cloud technology, removing the need for this infrastructure and enabling banks to scale systems as required.

Despite its potential advantages over legacy systems, Vault OS may struggle to attract widespread adoption among legacy banks, due to risks and complexity associated with implementing untested technology. An easier market for Vault OS might be challenger banks that are looking to build their systems from scratch. Legacy bank IT provider Fiserv is already targeting this market with its Agiliti platform.

We’ve entered the most profound era of change for financial services companies since the 1970s brought us index mutual funds, discount brokers and ATMs.

No firm is immune from the coming disruption and every company must have a strategy to harness the powerful advantages of the new fintech revolution.

The battle already underway will create surprising winners and stunned losers among some of the most powerful names in the financial world: The most contentious conflicts (and partnerships) will be between startups that are completely reengineering decades-old practices, traditional power players who are furiously trying to adapt with their own innovations, and total disruption of established technology & processes:

Traditional Retail Banks vs. Online-Only Banks: Traditional retail banks provide a valuable service, but online-only banks can offer many of the same services with higher rates and lower fees

Traditional Lenders vs. Peer-to-Peer Marketplaces: P2P lending marketplaces are growing much faster than traditional lenders—only time will tell if the banks strategy of creating their own small loan networks will be successful

Traditional Asset Managers vs. Robo-Advisors: Robo-advisors like Betterment offer lower fees, lower minimums and solid returns to investors, but the much larger traditional asset managers are creating their own robo-products while providing the kind of handholding that high net worth clients are willing to pay handsomely for.

As you can see, this very fluid environment is creating winners and losers before your eyes…and it’s also creating the potential for new cost savings or growth opportunities for both you and your company.

After months of researching and reporting this important trend, Evan Bakker, research analyst for BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has put together an essential report on the fintech ecosystem that explains the new landscape, identifies the ripest areas for disruption, and highlights the some of the most exciting new companies. These new players have the potential to become the next Visa, Paypal or Charles Schwab because they have the potential to transform important areas of the financial services industry like:

Retail banking

Lending and Financing

Payments and Transfers

Wealth and Asset Management

Markets and Exchanges

Insurance

Blockchain Transactions

If you work in any of these sectors, it’s important for you to understand how the fintech revolution will change your business and possibly even your career. And if you’re employed in any part of the digital economy, you’ll want to know how you can exploit these new technologies to make your employer more efficient, flexible and profitable.

Among the big picture insights you'll get from The Fintech Ecosystem Report: Measuring the effects of technology on the entire financial services industry:

Why financial technology is so disruptive to financial services—it will soon change the nature of almost every financial activity, from banking to payments to wealth management.

The basic conflict will be between old firms and new—startups are re-imagining financial services processes from top to bottom, while incumbent financial services firms are trying to keep up with new products of their own.

Both sides face serious obstacles—traditional banks and financial services firms are investing heavily in innovation, but leveraging their investments is difficult with so much invested in legacy systems and profit centers.

Meanwhile, startups are struggling to navigate a rapidly-changing regulatory landscape and must scale up quickly with limited resources.

The blockchain is a wild card that could completely overhaul financial services. Both major banks and startups around the world are exploring the technology behind the blockchain, which stores and records Bitcoin transactions. This technology could lower the cost of many financial activities to near-zero and could wipe away many traditional banking activities completely.

This exclusive report also:

Explains the main growth drivers of the exploding fintech ecosystem.

Frames the challenges and opportunities faced by incumbents and startups.

Breaks down global and regional fintech investments, including which regions are the most significant and which are poised for the highest growth.

Reveals which two financial services are garnering the most investment, and are therefore likely to be transformed first and fastest by fintech

Explains why blockchain technology is critically important to banks and startups, and assesses which players stand to gain the most from it.

Explores the financial sectors facing disruption and breaks them down in terms of investments, vulnerabilities and growth opportunities.

And much more.

The Fintech Ecosystem Report: Measuring the effects of technology on the entire financial services industry is how you get the full story on the fintech revolution.

To get your copy of this invaluable guide to the fintech revolution, choose one of these options:

Subscribe to an ALL-ACCESS Membership with BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report AND over 100 other expertly researched deep-dive reports, subscriptions to all of our daily newsletters, and much more. >> START A MEMBERSHIP

Purchase the report and download it immediately from our research store. >> BUY THE REPORT

The choice is yours. But however you decide to acquire this report, you’ve given yourself a powerful advantage in your understanding of the fast-moving world of financial technology.

Bitcoin price, as a commodity, criss-crosses its chart range. A reward-halving rally is still possible but is looking more and more unlikely as global commodities sink into a recession quagmire. This analysis is provided by xbt.social with a 3-hour delay. Read the full analysis here. Not a member? Join now. Bitcoin Price Analysis Time of analysis: […]

JPMorgan Chase, the largest US retail bank by assets, now counts 24.8 million mobile banking users, according to its Q2 2016 earnings presentation, indicating ongoing, but slowing growth.

Slowing growth could indicate that the market is approaching saturation.

The number of JPMorgan mobile banking users grew 18% year-over-year (YoY). But that’s down from the 22% YoY growth the firm posted in Q2 2015. And in Q2 2016, the firm added just 1 million new users to its mobile banking base.

That’s consistent with industry-wide trends, according to BankNXT. A US Federal Reserve survey showed that 53% of US smartphone owners used mobile banking in 2015. That’s up just three percentage points from the 50% posted in 2012, indicating that at the moment, there isn’t anything driving new users towards mobile banking applications.

Focusing on value-added services could help banks derive new value from their mobile banking offerings. For example, JPMorgan recently activated clearXchange so that users can make real-time peer-to-peer (P2P) transfers, which could appeal to users looking for convenient services from a trustworthy provider. Offering these types of services could increase the value of a given firm’s mobile banking user base by making customers reliant on the bank’s services rather than comparable offerings from alternative providers. That could increase loyalty and reduce attrition — mobile banking users, on average, consume one more banking product and have a much lower attrition rate than branch-only customers.

Mobile payments are becoming more popular, but they still face some high barriers, such as consumers' continued loyalty to traditional payment methods and fragmented acceptance among merchants. But as loyalty programs are integrated and more consumers rely on their mobile wallets for other features like in-app payments, adoption and usage will surge over the next few years.

Evan Bakker, research analyst for BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has compiled a detailed report on mobile payments that forecasts the growth of in-store mobile payments in the U.S., analyzes the performance of major mobile wallets like Apple Pay, Android Pay, and Samsung Pay, and addresses the barriers holding mobile payments back as well as the benefits that will propel adoption.

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

In our latest US in-store mobile payments forecast, we find that volume will reach $75 billion this year. We expect volume to pick up significantly by 2020, reaching $503 billion. This reflects a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 80% between 2015 and 2020.

Consumer interest is the primary barrier to mobile payments adoption. Surveys indicate that the issue is less the mobile wallet itself and more that people remain loyal to traditional payment methods and show little enthusiasm for picking up new habits.

Integrated loyalty programs and other add-on features will be key to mobile wallets taking off. Consumers are showing interest in wallets with integrated loyalty programs. Other potential add-ons, like in-app, in-browser, and P2P payments, will also start fueling adoption. This strategy has been proved successful in China with platforms like WeChat and Alipay.

In full, the report:

Forecasts the growth of US in-store mobile payments volume and users through 2020.

Reviews the performance of major mobile wallets like Apple Pay and Samsung Pay.

Addresses the key barriers that are preventing mobile in-store payments from taking off.

Identifies the growth drivers that will ultimately carve a path for mainstream adoption.

To get your copy of this invaluable guide, choose one of these options:

Subscribe to an ALL-ACCESS Membership with BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report AND over 100 other expertly researched deep-dive reports, subscriptions to all of our daily newsletters, and much more. >> START A MEMBERSHIP

Purchase the report and download it immediately from our research store. >> BUY THE REPORT

The choice is yours. But however you decide to acquire this report, you’ve given yourself a powerful advantage in your understanding of how mobile payments are rapidly evolving.

Bitcoiners love to believe their complicated version of money will win hearts and minds. But they might be overlooking one crucial aspect – most people don’t even understand traditional finance, let alone the uber complicated digital finance of the future. Almost two thirds of Americans can’t calculate interest payments. Yet, Bitcoiners believe their complicated digital […]

WPP's media buying arm, GroupM, has been revising the majority of its contracts with UK-based media owners, in an apparent attempt to shore up any transparency concerns.

Several sources at UK media companies — across TV, to newspapers, to digital businesses — said their contracts had recently been changed by GroupM.

Sources disagree on the importance of the changes. One described them as "not material" while another said the new contracts bear "no resemblance" to the old ones.

A GroupM spokesman sent Business Insider this statement:

"Negotiating contracts is our everyday business as we work to deliver advantage to our clients. GroupM UK has simply implemented template contract language and structure to enhance clarity and ensure deployment of best practices. The use of common definitions and format does not change our way of doing business."

At the center of the revisions is wording around what are known in the industry as "value pots," sources told Business Insider.

Value pots refer to the bank of free ad inventory media buying groups accrue as credit once they reach an agreed level of spend with a media owner.

Also known as "value banks," they are a contentious practice in the marketing industry. Most marketers would hope that any bonus inventory, accrued thanks to their ad spending, would be returned back to them. However, as value banks build up across an entire group of agencies at a holding company it can be difficult for an agency to trace back which client is owed what.

There are also concerns amongst marketers that agencies are spending their budgets with media owners simply to meet the value bank agreement they have in place, rather than spending dollars in the brand's best interests.

In addition, there have been occasions where agencies were found to have sold the free slots back to their clients. GroupM's Mediacom unit in Australia breached its parent company's policy by selling value bank slots back to four of its clients at discounted rates, an audit found last year. It has since refunded the clients, as Mumbrella reported.

Redrafting contracts does not mean that GroupM UK has done anything untoward — and as the statement points out, the company wants to enhance clarity.

The ANA study, carried out by investigations firm K2, alleged rebates and other non-transparent business practices were pervasive in the US media ad-buying ecosystem.

In the US, rebates are illegal if they are not passed back to clients, whereas in the UK, such practices are legal provided they are disclosed. Nonetheless, the ripples of the ANA report, which outlined "evidence of a fundamental disconnect in the advertising industry regarding the basic nature of the advertiser-agency relationship," were felt across the Atlantic.

In April, UK advertiser body ISBA preceded the report's release with the publication of a template contract designed to help marketers protect their interests when negotiating terms with media agencies. The 51-page contract seeks for agencies to provide "explicit definitions" of "AVBs/value pots and free inventory."

Steemit, the blockchain-based social media platform that was targeted in a cyberattack saw malicious hackers hack user accounts and their balances. Since then, a recovery process has seen compromised accounts with balances over $100 USD, restored and refunded to the affected users. Blockchain-powered Steemit saw some 250 user accounts compromised along with $85,000 in Steem […]

SolidX Partners Inc., a company that specializes in blockchain-based identity services, has registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to launch the SolidX Bitcoin Trust, an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that will provide shareholders exposure to the daily change in the U.S. dollar price of bitcoin, minus expenses and liabilities of the trust, as measured […]

Bitwala, a crypto-to-SEPA service that allows fiat currency transfers towards settlements from users who pay in bitcoin, ether and other crypto, has teamed with ShapeShift.io to allow customers to make payments, transfer funds and top up their debit cards using altcoins in addition to bitcoin. Customers will be able to send funds globally by paying the […]

Bitwala, a crypto-to-SEPA service that allows fiat currency transfers towards settlements from users who pay in bitcoin, ether and other crypto, has teamed with ShapeShift.io to allow customers to make payments, transfer funds and top up their debit cards using altcoins in addition to bitcoin. Customers will be able to send funds globally by paying the […]

Blockchain-powered social media platform Steemit, a new novel experiment in social media that sees users rewarded in the token cryptocurrency Steem has been the target of a cyber attack. Steemit, a new social media website that has grown tremendously since its launch two months ago has seen its token cryptocurrency Steem’s value explode over the […]